Number fourteen.

He walked back through the garden, keeping to the pathway he had made for himself. Graves had been taken away. A quick job, no fuss. The kitchen was empty. Inspector Hobbes stood by the table for a few moments, letting the atmosphere take him over.

A perfume bottle, some tablets, a bottle of vodka. A lady’s handkerchief decorated with the initials M.E. Mary Estelle. The loving spouse. But a farewell letter to another woman.

Final rites.

We come into this world alone, and we leave this world alone.

He shook his head to clear it, then walked along the hallway towards the front door. He would drive round to his wife’s house now, right now, and get it over with, and then he would know, one way or the other. Divorce, as seemed likely? Or maybe, was it possible, that Glenda might want to give it another shot?

His trouser legs were dark with rainwater and mud around the turn-ups, and his right foot squelched whenever he put it down. He stopped, thinking he might have to take it off, give it a clean in the car. And then he noticed the door built into the side of the staircase. There was a padlock on it, but it had been broken open, the bracket pulled loose from the wood of the door-frame. The door swung open easily, revealing another set of stairs, leading down into darkness. Hobbes groped around the inside wall, found a switch, and a light bulb clicked on below. With careful steps he walked down into the cellar.

It was a large space, taking up the entire foundations of the house. Crumbling stone walls, cold air, each footstep echoing. Another workbench down here, more tools. Lots of household items that the occupants could not bear to throw away: an armchair, a number of paintings, their faces to the wall, a tailor’s dummy. A wine rack with a couple of dusty bottles left in it. But no sign of the telltale dress. He was almost disappointed. No more clues.

A great number of items were pushed up against the furthest wall: wicker baskets, bed sheets and blankets, rolls of wallpaper, an ironing board, cardboard boxes, books, an old canvas tent, and so on. In a darkened corner he found a small pile of bones. It was a skeleton, that of a domestic cat, by the look of it, its tail still curved around its body in death. The flesh was all gone, eaten away, although a few patches of mangled fur still clung to the bones. Next to the creature’s body there was a metal bowl stained to the colour of rust inside, with a cut-throat razor laid across it. Hobbes grimaced at the sight. So old man Graves had used animal blood as well as his own, to adorn the dresses? Perhaps the cat’s blood at first and then, in desperation, his own in the later years? Start with red paint, ketchup and lipstick, then move on to animal blood, and human blood. It made a kind of cruel sense, an increase of intent. Which made Graves seem like a lunatic – there was no other explanation. And yet the woman next door had painted a picture of him as essentially harmless, a little damaged in the head or heart, perhaps, by loneliness and despair. But the sight of the cat’s bones told a different story.